I'm Gonna Be
by MixedBerry
Summary: At 23 years old, Danniel Fenton is living out his Plan B: teaching high school science at his old alma mater and continuing to fight the ghosts of Amity Park. How did he get here, and will a visit from an old friend shake up his dreams?
1. First Day of School

**Author's Note: **I don't own Danny Phantom or any of its characters.

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Daniel Fenton took a deep breath and straightened his tie in the mirror. The face that looked back at him carried an uneven smile and a clear-skinned, baby-blue-eyed face that looked much younger than his 23 years. The face that was going to get him eaten alive by those kids.

He cleared his throat and stepped from the teachers lounge into the hallway. He looked both ways, instinctively trying to avoid Lancer. Even though the man had turned out to be not such a bad guy, and actually something of a mentor, being back in the halls of Casper High brought back old habits. Sure enough, Lancer appeared from a doorway a few yards down.

"Mr. Fenton!" Lancer bellowed out in the loud voice he usually reserved for reprimanding unruly students, then laughed at his own semi-joke. "Seems like yesterday I was chasing after you down this hall." Daniel nodded, looked at his feet then back up again, rubbing the back of his neck self-consciously. "And now, here you are, first day on the job." He clapped Daniel on the back, just a touch too hard. "Better make a move. The longer they're in there alone, the worse it'll be." Daniel turned to walk toward the science room, hearing Lancer call over his shoulder. "And Mr. Fenton. Good luck!"

As he walked by a familiar bank of lockers, it felt like a horde of ghosts was watching him. Oh, not the usual green, slime-dripping kind. Just shadowy figures from the past. Tucker. Sam. Valerie, Paulina, Dash and Kwan. Gossip, chatter, locker-stuffing, hiding, secrets, friendships. He shook his head, opened the door marked "Room 107, Science Lab" and stepped in.

It was like walking into the wild animal enclosure at the zoo. At least that's how it seemed to a very young teacher on his first day on the job. Erasers flew through the air. The howl and chatter of 20 voices, some unbelievably shrill, filled the air. A window was open and two teenagers were leaning a good distance out of it, shouting. The noise of a glass beaker shattering rose above all of it.

He cleared his throat. Nothing. He called out in a loud voice. Still nothing. Finally he reached out, opened the door, then slammed it again so hard the blackboard shook. This did the trick. Twenty pairs of eyes turned on him. "What on earth was I thinking," he asked himself as he cleared his throat again, fought to keep his face from turning red and pushed his dark hair from his eyes. "I must be crazy!"

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It hadn't been all that bad, he supposed. He reviewed the day in his mind as he walked from the building. After all, it hadn't been his first day in the classroom. He'd been a student teacher at nearby Summit Park High during his final year of college. But there had always been another adult there with him. Adult. Now that was funny. He laughed to himself, catching the attention of a group of students hanging out on the front steps of the school.

Even being as oblivious as he could sometimes be, he couldn't help but notice the way a couple of the girls stared at him. This was a role he could never see himself in: the teacher all the female students had a crush on. And yet, during his student teaching stint he'd been teased mercilessly about it by the faculty at Summit Park. He looked at the ground and kept walking.

"Mr. Fenton," he thought. Wearing a shirt and tie almost exactly like the ones Lancer had worn for probably a hundred years. "Teachers can't afford expensive clothes, Daniel," Lancer had told him when he'd hired him for the job, looking up and down at Daniel's charcoal grey suit. "A shirt and tie is fine. Especially in the lab. You of all people should remember the kind of things that go on in there."

Broken beakers, stink bombs, acid burns. They'd all been a part of a Casper High science education for Danny Fenton. Still, science had been fun for him, unlike so many of the classes he'd struggled in. He'd wanted to be an astronaut. He laughed again, the sound harsh and just a little bitter. He slid behind the wheel of his compact car but didn't feel the urge to turn the key.

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_"You're going to have to be realistic, Danny," she said, sitting next to him on the sofa in his family's rather oddly-decorated living room. "Even if your C.A.T. scores were through the roof..."_

_"Which they're not," he interjected dryly, still holding the paper in his hand._

_"Which they're not," she responded, gently tugging the paper from his hands, "It's down to a choice that most kids don't have to make. Leave here, go to the right college, then...what? Join the Air Force? And what about...you know...?"_

_He'd know all along, in the very small part of his 15-year old mind that thought logically, that it was true. How could he turn his back on Amity Park and let the ghosts run riot over his friends and family? And how could he hope to live anything like the fantastic life he'd always dreamed for himself if he was always having to dash behind a fire hydrant and change into a ghost? He'd been fooling himself, thinking he could still hang on to all the dreams he'd always had, and his best friend Sam was making him face it in the most gentle way possible._

_He looked down at the paper again, then up into her lilac eyes, forcing a grin. "I guess the world can do without Danny Fenton, Astronaut."_

_She didn't say a word, just reached down and squeezed his hand. And then he blushed. And she blushed. And then she yanked her hand away, yelling "Last one to the Frosty Freeze is a hard-boiled egg!" and running for the front door. He watched her go, realizing that being an astronaut was probably not the only dream he'd have to give up, and that growing up sucked. A lot._


	2. Alone is a Relative Thing

**Author's note:** Thanks to all for the lovely reviews! And yes, I still don't own Danny Phantom :)

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A short drive and he was home. Well, home might have been too strong a word for it. He was back to the generic beige apartment building where he lived in one of the generic beige apartments on one of the five stories that each looked like the other. Still, the rent wasn't bad, and he wasn't living with his parents.

He walked in the door and threw his keys on the small table in the living room/dining room/office/den/study that served as the main room of the apartment. It took a full two minutes for him to notice the woman sitting in his computer chair. He smiled as his sister made an "it's about time you noticed me" face and pounced at him for a hug.

"What are you doing here?" he asked after she'd finished crushing the breath out of him. He couldn't help returning her warm smile as she flopped onto his futon. Jazz could always cheer him up. He supposed that was why she was going to be such a good psychiatrist, but he liked to think--or at least hope--that he was more than a practice case.

"You know, I had a couple days free," she answered, picking at some imaginary lint on her slacks, a sure sign she was lying.

"Yeah. Right at the beginning of the semester,most med students suddenly find themselves with nothing to do." He walked the ten steps to his tiny kitchen, grabbing two sodas from the refrigerator and banging his head on that one cupboard door that would never stay shut. He returned to see his sister grinning.

"What?"

"Nothing. Just nice to see you haven't changed so much after all." She accepted the soda and snapped the top open while she gave him a minute to try to come up with a good way to evade the questions she knew he knew were coming. He sat down. She ran one long finger around the rim of her can.

Finally, he broke the silence like she knew he would. "I hate when you do that."

"Do what?" She looked at him with a perfectly innocent expression, then broke into a wide grin. "You may as well just talk to me. It's easier in the long run. How was the first day?"

He took a long drink of his soda, emptying half the can in one swallow. "It was...you know. Felt like stepping back in time. I have a new appreciation for all the teachers that put up with us."

"And..." she hesitated just enough for him to worry. "...how is everything else?" She set her soda down and looked directly at him, not giving him a chance to evade her. She watched his face go from genial to closed, as though he'd slammed a door between them.

"Fine. Everything's good." He finished his soda and stood up, walking to toss the can in the recycling bin, keeping his back to her. "What do you want to do for dinner? Do Mom and Dad know you're here? We could order pizza, or there's this new Mexican place that's opened up over on Dey Street." He felt her eyes on the back of his head and knew she wasn't going to give up that easily. He walked back over and settled himself into a chair. "It's as good as can be expected. And no, I haven't talked to Mom and Dad about the portal. Or about anything else. And no," he held up his hand before she could say anything, "I'm not going to."

"Danny," she leaned forward with a worried expression that somehow made her look more like their mother than he was comfortable with, "you can't keep this up. And I can't keep waiting to get a phone call telling me that you're dead. There's some reason why the ghost infestation is getting so much worse, why these new spirits are getting through. And it's more than you can handle alone."

Alone. That was funny, considering how hard he'd worked to be just that. Alone.

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_"I told you guys, I've got this one. Don't miss the concert. I'll catch up with you."_

_They hesitated, like he knew they would. They argued with him. He looked at the spectre looming over the Amity Park Mall and reached out to Tucker with one gloved hand._

_"The longer you argue, the longer that thing is busting up the arcade. Give me the thermos and get moving."_

_In the end, he won. He'd been winning more and more lately. He could tell they were hurt, the way he kept pushing them away. Sam especially. It was for their own good. He watched the pair run from the mall parking lot before he took off into the air. Just because he was doomed to a life of second choices and limited possibilities, that didn't mean his friends were stuck too. In another six months they'd be looking at colleges, planning futures and heading off into the great unknown._

_He'd be damned if he'd hold them back._


	3. Test of Wills

**Author's Note: **Still don't own Danny Phantom. And thanks to all for the kind reviews.

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Daniel Fenton slowly slid open the top drawer of his desk. The room was quiet, which was odd enough in itself. Twenty heads bent over twenty test sheets and he worried that he'd made it too hard. Still, the silence made a nice break from explosions and paper airplanes.

He reached in and pulled out an energy bar, wincing at the pull of the muscles in his arm. Last night had been particularly bad, one of the worst encounters yet. Jazz was right, this was getting out of hand. For the last few months it seemed that a new breed of ghost had been finding its way to Amity Park. These ghosts weren't just nasty. They were malevolent, and extremely powerful.

He glanced up to see if the squeaking drawer had disturbed anyone, but they were all still busily working. He carefully unwrapped the bar, smiling at the wrapper. "Super Naturals". It had Sam all over it. He'd made sure to keep tabs on his two friends after they left Amity Park, and Sam's story was definitely something. She'd dropped out of college after one semester, worked a few crazy jobs, made her way across the country with a backpack and a sturdy pair of boots, and gone on to start her own natural products company. It seemed that she'd inherited her family's business sense, although she'd probably hate it if anyone told her that. The company, a clearing house for natural, recycled and vegetarian products, was just getting off the ground, but it was picking up steam quickly,

He took a bite of the bar. It tasted like cardboard flakes and dog food, but he'd come to like the taste in an odd sort of way. It reminded him that he'd made the right choices. Sam was happy, doing well, finding her place in the world. That never would have happened if she'd hung around Amity Park.

The bell rang, making him jump, which in turn made several of the students laugh. They bunched up around his desk, jostling to drop their tests off and get out the door. A few of the girls lingered, asking silly questions, finding a reason to hang around the cute new teacher a little while longer. "Maybe you should start an after school tutoring session, Mr. Fenton. That test was a killer." One of the girls, he couldn't remember her name just now, was smiling at him as she wrote her name on her test with a little heart over the "i". That's right. Belinda.

"I'll think about it. Better hurry or you'll miss the bus." The girls filtered out, leaving Daniel chewing the dog food/cardboard bar, which made him think of the Box Ghost, which made him think of the first year he'd gotten his ghost powers, which made him think of Tucker and Sam, which made him think about how much he missed them.

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_The snow was falling harder now, covering everything in the park with a fluffy smoothness. Danny walked slowly, hands in his pockets, not really in a hurry to get home in spite of the fact that it was so dark. He closed his eyes and let the cold flakes hit his warm face, listened to the noises of the town and the wind. It was peaceful, serene, and..._

_WHOOOMP!_

_Something hit him in the back of the head, and not lightly either. His eyes glowed green as he spun around. He didn't see a soul, human or otherwise, but he could feel the snow sifting down the inside of his coat collar. This was no ghost. It was a snowball-wielding, flesh and blood person. The first thought in his head was that it was Dash or one of his crew, but things had really settled down during Senior Year. The cliques seemed less...cliquey and everyone seemed to be thinking more about the future than about who was the biggest loser. That wasn't to say that everyone sat around campfires holding hands, but maybe they'd all grown up a little._

_While he stood there in the open like a six-foot bullseye, another snow missile hurtled toward him. This one caught him on the ear as he tried to dive out of the way. He heard a laugh from behind the statue of some town founder or other and realized the source instantly. "You're gonna be so sorry when I catch you!" In spite of his better judgment, he stooped down and scooped up a big handful of snow, patting it into a projectile with his thick winter gloves. He knew better. He'd been spending the better part of the last year trying to push Sam away. But the snow was melting and trickling down his back, and the air was crisp, the night was new and clean, and something in her laugh made him want to...well, pelt her with snow for one thing._

_He heard shuffling and saw a figure in black sprinting between the statue and a tree. He took aim and lobbed his snowball at her. He knew his strength, muscles built up from the last few years of fighting and running, arms and legs grown long, and he was careful not to throw too hard. Just hard enough. He laughed out loud, for the first time in months, and it felt amazing. Cold air filled his lungs, and the breath in front of him was crystalline white, not blue. The snowball hit her in the shoulder and she yelped, diving for cover behind a bristly pine tree._

_"You shouldn't dress in black if you want to blend in with a snowdrift!" he yelled as he ran after her. Somehow, she'd snuck away, and while he was running toward the tree after her, he heard a high-pitched shriek from behind just as a dark shadow sailed toward him, knocking him down into a drift of snow. She was laughing so hard she could hardly breathe as she tried to stuff snow down his back. He managed to roll over, but not to shake her as she continued to try to pin him down. He was laughing as hard as she was, barely having to fight to hold her smaller body at bay, managing to grab a handful of snow and toss it at her face._

_She stopped laughing suddenly, looking down at him with sparkling crystals in her dark hair and eyelashes, dusted on her cheeks and melting on her lips, which were red with the cold. He stopped laughing too, realizing her arms had stopped thrashing, afraid for a second he'd hurt her. She didn't look hurt and he was mesmerized by the light from the streetlamp catching the glisten of flakes on her lip. She was breathing hard from the exertion of trying to stuff snow in his shirt. He was breathing hard because she was so close._

_Suddenly all of his dreams seemed to be hanging in the air above him, so close that if he just reached the tiniest bit... She closed the gap between them, her lips warm as she brushed them against his. He drew in a deep breath as his arms closed around her, pulling her down to him, drinking like a drowning man from her kiss. It was the best three seconds of his life, before his brain decided it wasn't going to shut down after all. He had a flash of the future. The one Sam wasn't going to have if she hung around Amity Park, helping him chase ghosts. He pushed her away roughly, rolling out from beneath her and quickly standing up. He kept his back to her as he brushed snow from his coat._

_He waited just long enough to make sure she got up. He couldn't look at her. He knew if he looked at her, he'd be done for._

_"Danny..." Her voice sounded small. He cut her off. "I'd better get home. My parents'll be waiting." He knew he should walk her home, but he didn't trust himself. Instead, he waited until she walked toward her house, then went intangible and followed her to her door._

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"Mr. Fenton, do you think you could give me some extra credit work?" a high-pitched voice asked from the open doorway. He turned to shoo the girl out only to see a giggling young woman in the doorway, dressed in black jeans and a black sweater, her black hair pulled into long ponytail and her lilac eyes twinkling. Her voice was huskier as she spoke this time, and achingly familiar. "Long time, no see, Danny."


	4. The Ghost of You

**Author's Note: I'm really sorry if anybody is following this story to have taken so long to continue. The flu this year is nasty plus four, and it decided it liked me.**

**Once again, I still don't own Danny Phantom or any of its characters.**

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He stared. Like an idiot. For at least thirty seconds, during which she continued to regard him with a familiar sarcastic half-smile. He'd never understood that stupid phrase "a sight for sore eyes" until now. Now, when he realized just how sore his eyes had been for the sight of her.

He hurried to stand up, somehow managing to not push his chair back and cracking his knee incredibly hard against the underside of the desk. She instinctively took a step toward him, her hand out like she might grab his arm to steady him. The thought of her touching him had him kicking the chair back against the wall with a crash as he rushed to stand, sending some chalk flying from the blackboard tray and an eraser plummeting to the floor.

"And some things never do change," she drawled as she stepped back to the doorway. Her face had changed so little that he could almost swear time had thrown him backward. His eyes traveled from her eyes to her delicate cheekbones, over lips that he could still taste on his, snow covered and...

"You alright? It was your knee you hit, not your head, right? Danny?"

He cleared his throat and opened his mouth. What was he going to say. He'd never expected her to turn up here. In the beginning, she'd written. He'd read every word hungrily but never responded. She'd called, and he'd always let his machine pick up then played the message over and over like an idiot. She'd eventually stopped trying. And yet, here she was. She didn't look angry. She just looked...like Sam. He looked at a spot six inches to her left.

"Um, hi. What...um, what brings you here?" There. At least he'd spoken. And his voice had only been a little squeaky.

"Actually," she started, dragging the words out with enough hesitation to worry him, "I was hoping we could talk about something."

That was bad. People didn't tell you they wanted to talk to you about something unless it was bad. If it was good they just started talking to you about it. He searched his mind for a hint of a possibility of what she could want to talk about, but found nothing.

As if sensing his reluctance, she rushed to continue. "It won't take long. Maybe we can, I dunno, get a cup of coffee?"

He couldn't think of a good reason to say no. He tried. Heaven help him, he tried. Half an hour with Sam could be, well, dangerous among other things. Why was she here? Why now, when he'd finally gotten himself settled into his life, when he'd finally been able to stop thinking about her quite so much? Oh, who did he think he was kidding with that one?

"I, um, well, there a lot of tests to grade..." It sounded lame, even to him. So he shrugged and followed her through the door, down the hallway where the ghosts of his past lingered, mocking him, and out to the parking lot.

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_"Don't be such a grouch. Just come with me." After what had happened in the park a few months before, she was somehow miraculously still speaking to him. He could feel the wind trying to pull the graduation cap from his head and reached up one hand to hold it on. She grabbed the other and dragged him across the school lawn, across the parking lot, and down a small hill behind the school to a little picnic area the teachers sometimes ate lunch at._

_Tucker stood there in his own Casper High cap and gown, tall and gangly and grinning like an idiot. Even though Danny had made it clear that the ghost forays were his to deal with alone, Tuck hadn't stopped trying to be a friend. None of that mattered now, Danny thought. In a few months he'd be off to that prestigious tech college and his future._

_Sam shoved him next to Tucker and stood in front of them. Then he noticed Jazz with a camera. Strange to be standing here like this, like everything was the same, like tomorrow they'd get up and hang out at the mall, fight a ghost or two, eat at the Nasty Burger. Like Sam wasn't leaving in two days for the trip to Europe that her parents swore was essential for any cultured young woman to take before college. Like they wouldn't be gone for good very soon. Like he wouldn't be stuck here fighting ghosts, taking the blame for everything that went wrong in Amity Park, and going to the run-down teachers college a few miles out of town._

_He felt a jab in his ribs, Sam's pointy elbow. "Smile," she whispered as she pasted a smile on her own face. The flash erupted in his eyes._

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It was the screams they heard first, followed by the blinding flash. Danny broke out in a run past Sam and toward the far side of the parking lot, ducked behind a car and emerged a few seconds and his own flash of light later as the ghostly Danny Phantom. He looked over his shoulder to make sure Sam had stayed back. Of course she hadn't.

He screamed over his shoulder for her to stay back as he turned to find the source of the chaos. Another flash of light directed his attention and the spirit began to grow from a small red-shelled figure to a massive tower of light, flame and red heat. Damn, this was going to be ugly. He headed toward the behemoth, an ectoplasmic net already forming between his hands, ready to try to slow the thing down. And he swore he heard Sam's voice.

"My god, it's real..."


	5. The Icy Fingers of Fate

Author's Note: I still don't own Danny Phantom or any of its characters.

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He didn't have much time to ponder her meaning, as the giant flaming entity picked up a car and hurled it across the parking lot toward a group of students who hadn't yet boarded buses or run. He used the net he'd been forming to tangle the car, slowing it and pitching it from its original trajectory. It landed in a heap of twisted, burning metal in a patch of bare lawn.

He shouted at the kids to get out of the way, but even so he knew he had to get the thing away from the parking lot where it could cause so much damage. He let a pool of energy build in each of his hands and looked the ghost over for weak spots. Before it could make another Toyota into a flaming missile, he let two bursts of energy fly from his hands into the ghost's face. He knew it wouldn't stop the thing. It probably wouldn't even hurt it. But it got its attention.

It turned its massive body until it fixed its glowing red eyes on the source of annoyance, a black-clad ghost that was darting around it. It took a swipe with one mighty armored arm and missed, much as a gorilla might miss an annoying fly. Danny smiled and headed around the side of the school building, past the football field, down a sloping hill to the edge of the woods. As far from people as he could get.

The huge ghost swiped at Danny again, then realized it might be easier to just send a wave of fiery ectoplasm his way. Danny barely avoided it, then gathered his strength to send what looked like a lightning bolt toward the larger ghost. The bolt of energy took on a physical form, like an arrow, and actually made a dent in the giant's armor. Part of him wished that Sam could see him, see the new powers he'd mastered over the last few years. But most of him was glad she was safe on the other side of the...

"The thermos! Where is it?" he heard her voice from nearby, behind him. He groaned. "Sam, I told you, stay back! There's..."

He was cut off by a red projectile from his opponent that looked harmless until it exploded in a mushroom cloud of fire just a few inches from him. He went intangible a millisecond before it roasted him and looked around for Sam. She was crouched beneath a picnic table, which, he had to admit, wasn't much protection against this sort of ghost. He had to get her away.

"The thermos doesn't work on this guy. On any of them." As he yelled to her, he darted behind and around the massive spectre, trying to confuse and distract it. "Now get out...of...the...way!"

Each of the last words was punctuated by the release of a whip-cord of ectoplasm from his hands, each strand tangling itself around a limb of the monster. Danny drew them together, hoping to topple the beast, but as seemed to be his luck lately the whole thing backfired. The ghost used the threads like a fishing line, dragging Danny in toward him, pounding the much smaller half-ghost against the ground until it shook.

Danny shook his head and blinked, looking up at the creature standing over him. It raised one huge, fireball-filled hand and pinned Danny to the ground with its other. Danny struggled to break free. At the last second, when he knew with an unpleasant certainty that he was going to eat ectoplasmic fire as his last meal, something black streaked along his line of vision.

Dammit all, it was Sam! She threw a rock--a rock!--at the fiery ghost. It bounced from the ghost's armor like a pebble against a high-rise. But the creature looked. Looked and laughed. It laughed so hard its entire body shook. The ground shook again. And as it reached down to grab Sam, presumably to crush her like a bug, Danny shot free. And he saw it. The spot he'd have to go for. Just at the back of the thing's neck there was a spot where head armor met body armor. A weakness. He'd found a similar spot on each of them so far. Thankfully.

He concentrated all the energy he had into a beam of ectoplasm and aimed it at the back of the giant's neck. It howled in fury as it spun on him, the tiny human woman forgotten. And then it dissipated in a spectacular show of fireworks that showered the back of the schoolyard in cinders, thick and heavy like snow.

Danny closed his eyes for a second, took a deep breath of relief, then swooped down for Sam. She was lying on the ground, blood trickling from a gash in her forehead. For just a second his heart stopped. Well, would have if he hadn't been a ghost that didn't technically have a heart. But she moved, looked up at him, and grinned an unmistakably Sam-like grin. He grabbed her, turned them both invisible and flew away toward the only place he could think of, which was his beige apartment.

"Why didn't you stay? And what the hell was that thing, anyway? And why wouldn't the thermos work? When did you get that lightning-bolt thing? Why didn't you just use the Ghostly Wail on it?" She hadn't stopped with the questions since they'd left the school, and he hadn't answered a single one. He phased through the side of his apartment building and deposited her on his futon. It only took a second to change back to human form. He fought the urge to slump down next to her in exhaustion.

"It takes too much out of me still, and it wouldn't have stopped him anyway." He sat down on a nearby chair and closed his eyes. "Why didn't you stay back?"

"Wait a minute," she said as she sat forward on the futon. "The Ghostly Wail wouldn't stop it? What was that thing?"

He sighed and stood up, heading for the tiny galley of a kitchen. A minute later, after bumping his head on the cupboard door, he came back with a damp paper towel. He started to reach forward to wipe the blood from her forehead but stopped himself, instead handing it to her with a shrug. "Your head is bleeding."

She took the cloth without a word and pressed it to her forehead, her eyes searching his face as she did. "You really wish I hadn't come, don't you?"

He dropped back into his chair. "Don't be silly." He didn't even sound convincing to himself. "It's good to see you. I just wish you hadn't gotten in the middle of that fight. These aren't the ghosts we fought when we were kids. You could have been killed."

She laughed, a small smug laugh, so familiar it might have been hours she'd been away not years. "I don't know if you noticed, but it was you that was almost killed. I seem to recall saving you back there."

He stood up again. As tired as he was, he didn't seem to be able to stay in one place. "Sam, it's not a joke. This is..."

The doorbell rang, saving him. He walked over to the door quickly and yanked it open. Two uniformed police officers stood on the other side.

"Mr., uh, Fenton?" One of them spoke as he read from a notepad. Danny nodded. "There's been an incident at the school. We were just wondering if you saw anything."

Danny slipped his hands in his pockets. "No. Actually, Miss Manson and I," he nodded toward Sam who had quickly shaken her hair over the cut on her forehead, "left the school a while ago."

The policeman looked him over. "Well, you'll be glad to know that none of your students were injured." He didn't have to add "no thanks to you, coward," but it was implied. They thought he'd run away, abandoning his students to their fate. He swallowed. "Well, uh, thanks for letting me know."

The cop nodded. "If you decide you saw anything, just let us know, ok?"

He shut the door and turned back toward Sam. She half-smiled. "You know and I know."

He shrugged. "Are you hurt anywhere else?" He figured it was safer to get her on another subject. Any other subject. She shrugged. "I twisted my ankle a little. Nothing major. Stop changing the subject. Why can't you use the thermos on that ghost? And where did it go?"

He knelt in front of the futon and tugged off her boot. He could hear her suck in a breath as she winced at the pull. Her ankle was swollen and black and blue. If she'd left it much longer he'd have had to cut the boot off. "You need some ice on this."

"You're changing the subject again. What's going on with that thing? And why..."

He was already gone, rummaging around in his freezer. He pulled out one sorry tray with three ice cubes in it, tossed it in the sink, narrowly avoided hitting his head on the cupboard door, and walked back into the living room. The neighbors no doubt wondered at the burst of light that came from his windows as he changed into a ghost. Sam probably wondered if he'd lost his mind until he sat next to her on the futon, pulled her leg onto his lap, and wrapped his gloved hands gingerly around her injured ankle. Then she smiled as the cold from his hands radiated through the swollen joint.

"Nice one." She relaxed, letting his cold fingers ease the pain in her ankles.

"Tell me about your company. I eat your energy bars every day."

She leaned forward with a dazzling smile on her lips. Those lips.

_Valerie was somewhere above them, going on about "loser love". Somewhere, a ghost dog was doing heaven knew what. But it was really hard to think with Sam on top of him, her lips locked on his. He stared at her for a full minute afterward, until she asked if he knew it was just another "fakeout make-out"._

"Cardboard and dog food," he muttered, distracted.

"What!"

He blinked twice, hoping he didn't have the same goofy expression on his face as he'd had when they were fourteen and hiding his secret from Valerie Gray. "The competition. The other brands that aren't yours. Taste like cardboard and dog food. Not like yours. Yours are good. I can't believe your parents would help you with a..."

She looked like she might slap him. "Help me? Help me! I started that company without one bit of help from my parents. They've done nothing but tell me it was a bad idea, that I was going to fail." She looked down at her hands. "Which is probably the only reason I really worked so hard at it. "

He smiled at her words as he forced his eyes open. He was listening. But he was so tired... His fingers, which had been massaging her ankle, slowed as he felt himself drifting off to sleep.

He was awakened by a shriek. He jumped a foot in the air, sending Sam tumbling to the floor. He bumped his head on the floor lamp next to the futon and sent it crashing to the floor, which in turn plunged the room into darkness. He went for the light switch, nearly tripping over Sam, then looked around the room thinking he'd see a ghost. All he saw was Sam, rubbing her elbow where it had hit the carpeted floor. Then he realized the shriek had come from her. Her face was even paler than usual, and her eyes were rimmed in red.


	6. In Your Dreams

Author's Note: Still don't own Danny Phantom or any characters from it.

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She rubbed her elbow as he stood and stared. Finally he shook himself fully awake. Somehow he'd changed back into human form, probably when he fell asleep. He walked over to kneel next to her. "Are you alright?"

She laughed. God help him, she just laughed. Like he'd just told the biggest joke in the world. She laughed while she hauled herself into a sitting position on his beige carpet, and she was still laughing when she dropped her face into her hands. He watched her shoulders shake and wondered if he was dreaming. She eventually lifted her head and looked around the apartment as though she were searching for something.

"Sam?"

"My bag. I was wearing it when I came after you behind the school. It has to be here. If it's there we have to go get it. Danny, was I carrying my bag when we got here?" Her voice was raising excitedly as she spoke and he reached over next to the futon and tossed her large black bag at her.

She grabbed it and yanked it open, reaching in to pull out a medium-sized notebook. It was covered in black fabric and had a border of tiny skulls along one side. He smiled a little, glad to see that she was still a goth at heart. "There," she said as she thrust the notebook at him like it contained all the answers. He flipped it open and realized that maybe it did.

Sam had always been a reasonably good artist. She was constantly doodling in school, sketching pictures, designs, logos, caricatures of teachers and annoying classmates. She'd obviously improved over the years. He was staring down at the perfectly-drawn image of the fire ghost he'd fought that afternoon. Right down to the details of the armor and the flames at the fingertips.

He turned the page. There was the beast that had attacked him in the park last week, towering over a tree, huge green and slimy with deep black holes where his eyes should be. And the two-headed dragon ghost he'd found tearing the local grocery store to pieces. He flipped the pages faster and faster, recognizing each of the horrible ghosts that had recently unleashed their wrath on Amity Park. And even scarier, a few he hadn't seen yet. He raised his gaze from the last page, a vortex of energy with hundreds of menacing faces peering from it, to Sam's face. He realized she'd been staring at him the entire time.

He looked into her eyes and saw something that didn't belong there. Fear. Flat-out terror. He raised his eyebrow, the question unspoken but tangible between them. She reached out and took the notebook from him while he resisted the urge to grasp her shaking hands.

"I've been having dreams." She stopped as though she couldn't think where to go after that phrase. She tapped the book lightly. "This is my dream diary. I...I sketch what I dream when I wake up. It helps, you know, get the pictures out of my head."

He just kept looking at her. She looked down at the book. "I thought they were just nightmares. I didn't know they were real." Her violet eyes found his, locked with them. "How are they real, Danny? This doesn't make any sense."

"What made you come here, Sam?" His voice was more urgent now, his eyes still not leaving her face.

She broke the gaze first. "I talked to Jazz. She said...she said things weren't going very well here. That there were new ghosts. I wasn't sure, I mean I didn't think there was a connection, except..."

"Except what, Sam? What's going on here?" He hadn't realized how much he'd raised his voice until he saw her pull back. He took a deep breath and spoke quietly. "What's the connection. What are you seeing in these dreams?"

She swallowed, then swallowed again. "Well...mostly stuff like what happened today. I see you, fighting these ghosts..." She ran her hand through her hair. It had come loose from the ponytail and was now falling around her shoulders, partially covering her face. He couldn't read her expression, and an unwelcome panic was rising in his chest.

"And in one of them...that thing on the last page...Danny, maybe I shouldn't tell you. I mean, it's just a dream. It's just a stupid dream."

He forced himself to stay patient. He knew this wasn't easy for her. After the way he'd pushed her away he wouldn't have blamed her if she never wanted to speak to him again. And yet she'd come here because she was afraid he was in trouble. "Sam, tell me all of it."

"You die." She blurted it out harshly, then looked him right in the eye. "Everyone dies. Everyone in Amity Park. Your family, my family, everyone. The town is wrecked. Gone. Danny, it's a dream. But it's so real." He did it then. He reached out and took both of her hands in his. He hadn't realized how much he'd been wishing for just that simple touch, the feel of her fingers against his. She was crying. Sam didn't cry. And yet there was a wet trail down each of her porcelain cheeks and her eyes were a dark amethyst.

"I'll figure it out, Sam. Don't worry. It'll be ok." He was babbling, telling her anything to make her stop worrying. He ran his thumbs over her palms as he spoke. "You have to leave now. Go home and get away from here. You've got to go."

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_She stood in the front door of her parent's mansion in Amity Park. A pile of matched luggage stood next to her. She looked up and down the street as though she was waiting for something. "Idiot," the ghost hovering across the street said to himself, "of course she is. She's waiting for her taxi." _

_She looked down at her watch, then back up and down the street. Her face lit up as she saw a figure approach. Tucker. He ran up and wrapped her in a huge bear hug. "Where's Danny?" The ghost that was now hovering over the pile of luggage fought hard with himself. The urge to materialize and get one of those hugs for himself was strong. The urge to ask her not to go was stronger. He knew once that happened it was all over. Sam would stay, not go to Europe, not go to college, not live her life. _

_He flew up into the air above the pair on the sidewalk and looked down. And she looked up. He jumped. She couldn't see him. He knew she couldn't. But she stared straight at him with those wide, lilac eyes. Tucker was holding her hand. "I'm sure he wanted to be here, Sam. Probably fighting a ghost. You know how it is." _

_Danny flew as far and as fast as he could. Over the park where he'd lost his breath and his mind when Sam had kissed him, past his own house, past the mall, outside of town. A pair of cats sitting on a fence jumped three feet in the air when the wind behind them howled two words. "Don't go!"_


	7. A Friend in Need

**Author's Notes**: I still don't own Danny Phantom.

I feel like this story is kind of bogging down, or at least not moving like I'd like it to. It's so hard to tell from inside the story. Anyway, here it is.

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She pulled her hands from his as she jumped to her feet, forgetting the injury to her ankle and cursing when she brought her weight down on it. She seemed to turn the anger she should have directed at the pain in her joint on him.

"You know, that worked when I was a stupid teenager. It doesn't fly now." She reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a cell phone. Yanking the phone open, she punched a single button somewhat harder than necessary. "Yeah, it's me. It's a go." She slammed the phone shut and looked down at Danny, who was gaping up at her from his position sitting on the floor. He seemed to snap out of it as he stood.

"Sam, I don't want to..."

"I don't care what you want. It's not always about what you want. You don't get to decide what I..."

The doorbell rang, interrupting them again. A grateful Danny hurried over and hauled the door open. A tall, dark-skinned young man wearing wire-rimmed glasses and dressed in khakis and a polo shirt stood on the other side seeming a little surprised at the hasty response.

Sam limped to stand behind Danny and grinned. "How did you get here so fast?"

Tucker Foley stepped into the small apartment without bothering to wait for an invitation from its owner and bent down to scoop the much smaller Sam into a warm hug. Danny couldn't conceal his growing irritation, and--if he was willing to admit it to himself--jealousy any longer. "If you two are through with your touching little reunion, do you want to tell me what's going on?"

"I called Tucker to come, but I thought he was still in..." "...Florida. But when she called me yesterday I just took a flight out here. I figured it would be faster if you needed me."

Nice. They were finishing each other's sentences now. Danny felt a pang of...something when he thought about the years that they'd been in touch with each other, sharing their lives without him. Sam gave him a semi-smile. "After I talked to Jazz and she told me what was going on here, I called Tuck. I told him about the dreams and we both thought, I mean, it was a slim chance but that there might have been a connection. I told him we might need his help."

Tucker, meanwhile, had opened the soft case he was carrying and was rifling through it. "You'll be glad you did when you see what I've got here."

Tucker had so far lived the life Danny knew he would. Offered a job by a prestigious tech firm before he had even finished college, Tucker was now designing gear in their lab headquarters in Florida while simultaneously studying for his doctorate. His employers footed the bill while paying him well for his work. Danny looked over the piece of shiny equipment in front of him, and Sam sighed as her cell phone rang.

"Yes? This is Sam Manson. What is it? You...are you sure? Why? It doesn't make...yes, yes. I understand." She eyed Danny and Tucker. "I'll have to call you back." She hung up the phone and looked like she might toss it out the window. "What is it," Tucker asked with what Danny felt was far too much concern in his voice.

"Oh, it's not anything I can't deal with." She folded her arms in front of her in a posture Danny remembered all too well. "The foundation that backed my company wants to call in their loans. Immediately. They want me at a meeting first thing in the morning to discuss it. They say if I'm not there, they'll have no choice."

Danny jumped on this bit of news like a drowning man grasping a life preserver. "Well, that's that then. It was really good to see you, and we'll have to keep in touch now. I can go get your car from the school for you if you wait here." If he could just get the pair of them gone. Then maybe this lump in his chest would dissolve and he could go back to grading poorly-spelled papers and fending off doe eyes from the girls in his class. And fighting ghosts alone.

This time she did throw the phone. It bounced on the beige carpet and landed a few feet away. "You really can't be that thick, Danny. If they pull the loan, they pull it. If the company goes under, it goes under." She limped to the futon and sat. "Stop looking at me like that."

Tucker cleared his throat. "Have you guys had dinner? I'm guessing you haven't had dinner. It's like nearly eight o'clock and I'm starving. Why don't I go get some takeout and I'll be back in a few." He left without waiting for a response. This all felt so familiar, Tucker slipping out to leave Sam arguing with him. Of course in the past it had always been with some comment about leaving the lovebirds alone.

"Sam, I thought this company was your dream. You've worked so hard for it. Even if I did want you here, I couldn't let you lose it on my account." He sat down next to her and resisted the urge to stare into her eyes until he forgot about ghosts, energy bars and anything that didn't involve kissing her.

"You don't know what my dreams are, Danny. You never did." Her voice was so quiet he hardly heard her. She was looking down at her hands in her lap. "You took my dreams away from me. So if you want to get rid of me, don't make excuses. But don't think it's going to be easy, either."

Danny stared at her for a full five minutes, stunned. He took her dreams away? What the hell was she talking about? He tried to ask her but found his voice cracking. He settled for standing up and pacing the small room. Unfortunately his legs were long and the room was small, so it didn't take many steps. "Sam, I want you to go home. Just please...don't argue with me and don't take it personally. I can handle this myself." He felt an old guilt slip onto his shoulders like a familiar well-worn coat. Pushing her away had become second nature during their last year of school, but it had never gotten any easier.

Of all the things she could have said, it was the one word he dreaded the most. "No."

"What do you mean, no? Didn't you hear what I..."

"Amity Park _is_ my home, Danny. In case you've forgotten. And you won't make me leave it this time." He could have sworn he hearda barely audible "Or you."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

_He smiled as he read the article for the fifth time. The headline jumped out at him. "Young Entrepreneur Challenges Natural Foods Status Quo." The tiny article on the last page of the Seattle Times business section praised a woman who started a small busines selling natural, recycled and vegetarian products when she hadn't been able to find a pair of decent non-leather boots._

_He glanced out the window of his small dorm room, watching the snow from a late winter storm swirl in the air as he tried to imagine her life. She was doing something he knew she'd enjoy. She was living Life. The Life with a capital L that he'd dreamed for her. He looked again at the envelope the newspaper had come in. No return address. Typed label. It didn't seem like Sam to have sent it, but it had a Seattle postmark. It must have been. She'd stopped sending letters two years ago, but maybe she still thought of him, wanted to share her success._

_He read through the article again, then slipped the paper into his desk drawer. Lately he'd been having regrets, wondering if he'd been wrong to work so hard to push Sam and Tucker away. Now he knew he'd done the right thing. It didn't make things any less lonely, though, he thought as he slipped on his coat and hurried out the door for his first class._


	8. As Plain as the Ghost in Your Face

**Author's Notes: As usual, I don't own Danny Phantom.**

I want to take a quick paragraph to say how upset I am over the fact that Danny Phantom won't be renewed after Episode 53. Please, everyone who's as upset as I am, write to Nickelodeon. Don't sign an online petition. That has about as much weight as shouting into the wind. Please, please write a real paper letter. And don't flame them. Tell them what this show means to you, and how sorry you'd be to see it go. This community is full of good writers, who can express themselves eloquently and intelligently. Use that talent!

The address to write (from Butch Hartman at his own web site) is:

**Nickelodeon  
1515 Broadway  
New York, New York 10036  
Attention: Programming.**

I'll step off my soapbox now, and here's the next chapter :)

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The remains of a massive meal lay across the fold-out table in Danny's living room/study/dining room. Several Nasty Burger wrappers, some Chinese food containers with a few pieces of broccoli and tofu in the bottom and a few tortilla ends and pieces lay discarded along with three greasy paper plates. Tucker smiled with satisfaction.

"You know, it's true what they say. You can travel anywhere, but there's no food like your hometown food." Sam scraped at the bottom of a container and fished out a final piece of broccoli with her disposable chopsticks. "I'm sure the local restaurants have missed you immensely, Tucker."

"Gotta spread the love, you know," he grinned as he scooped a bunch of wrappers into an empty bag. Danny sat silently, wondering if the two even realized what a rapport they had. It was like watching an old married couple or something. Sam tossed the empty container into the trash bag in Tucker's hand and Tucker caught it easily.

"You know guys, this has been great, but I have school in the morning," Danny finally said, sounding like an old grouch even to himself.

"You know man, Sam and I could get a hotel," Tucker replied "but I think it'd be better if we camped out here. Then we can work on forming a strategy." Danny knew he meant separate hotel rooms, but the sound of "get a hotel" still bugged him. He stood up and looked around the room.

"I've only got the futon and the bed in the bedroom."

Tucker reached in his bag with a flourish and retrieved a box the size of a pack of playing cards. He hit a small button on the side and the box exploded almost instantly into a twin-sized full-height inflatable bed.

"That's one of my inventions. The company's gonna make a fortune when they start selling those. Imagine...shoulda inflated it in there, though..." His voice trailed off as he dragged the bed through the tiny kitchen and into Danny's bedroom. Sam laughed.

"He hasn't changed at all. Well, his grades are definitely better than they were. If you don't mind, I'm gonna crash on your futon. Maybe we can all meet up during your lunch hour tomorrow and make a plan. I know Tuck has some gear that can help us, and I think if we can figure out where these things are coming from it'll be a good first step."

Tucker emerged from the bedroom with a look on his fact that could only mean something was wrong. This time, Sam spoke up with what sounded to Danny like an inordinate amount of concern. "What is it, Tuck?"

"There was an accident at my lab. They say I'm responsible, that I left an experiment running. They want me back there tonight. I know I shut that experiment down. I know I did." He dropped into a chair as he spoke. "I'm gonna lose my job."

He hated to say it. He really did. But Danny heard the words from his own mouth before he could stop them. "Doesn't it seem suspicious to you two that within hours of getting here, you both have some kind of crisis that demands you immediately leave? I mean if I didn't know better, I'd think someone was trying to get rid of you."

Sam looked toward Danny. "You mean besides you? I thought it was really strange that the First Action Foundation would pull my loans. They were so eager to back me a couple years ago. Said I was just the kind of new business they liked to support. I've worked so closely with them, and now this."

Tucker had already pulled a notebook-type computer the size of a CD case from his pocket and was typing away at the keyboard he'd unrolled onto the table. "I'm on it."

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Danny sat on the front edge of his desk looking out at the sea of adolescent faces in his classroom. A large Periodic Table of the Elements loomed behind him. "It's pretty amazing when you think about it," he said as he looked for any spark of interest in any of the eyes out there. "It might not seem like it, but everything in the universe has a pattern, a structure. It's like," his face took on its own excitement as he got into his subject, "like it's a giant puzzle, and each element is a piece."

A hand came up in the back. An actual question. "Amanda, yes?"

The young brunette cleared her throat. "Are we going to have to memorize that thing?" A few sets of eyes glazed over in panic.

Danny shook his head. He should have seen that coming. He stood up and walked between the desks, handing each student an index card on the way. "There's an element on each of these cards. Tomorrow I want each of you to know enough about the element you have to give us a two minute overview. I also want you to sit in order to match the Periodic Table." He saw a note passing between two girls in the back. "Fiona, Beth, I assume that's a fascinating discussion about the properties of hydrogen there." He snatched the note and slipped it in his pocket. "You can pick that up at my desk after class."

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_He unfolded the piece of crumpled paper and smoothed it out. He nearly burst out laughing at the caricature of Lancer he was looking at. The out-of-shape teacher was dressed as Ahab, stabbing a harpoon into a huge book with "Moby Dick" written on it. He looked over at Sam and smiled._

_She pretended to drop a pencil and as they both bent down to get it, she passed him a second note. It only said "meet me in the janitor's closet before next period." His heart skipped a beat, even though he knew it was probably nothing but plans for the three of them to go to the movies. He nodded and looked back up only to come face to face with the bulging stomach of Lancer himself. Both notes were snatched and stuffed into Lancer's pocket._

_He was doomed to another C. He could feel it already._

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Tucker and Sam were waiting for him in the hall outside of his classroom as the students filed out groaning about their homework. Damn but it felt strange to be standing in the hall with the two of them. It was like the years since high school hadn't happened. Sam grabbed his arm and dragged him toward the exit. In spite of her limp she was still strong and pretty fast to boot.

"Hey, hold up. Are you two kidnapping me or what?" He looked behind him at the two girls whose note he had taken, shuddering at the memory of the piece of paper. Most of it was filled with comments about how cute their teacher was and which one of them would marry him. He decided he was probably safer being kidnapped by Sam and Tucker. Sam dragged him outside and to a secluded area behind the dumpsters.

"We have to talk, Danny. Now."

He held up his hands in surrender. "Alright. I have class in three minutes. Talk fast."

Tucker handed Danny a small piece of tech that looked like a very streamlined version of his old PDA. Danny stared at scrolling lines of information for a few seconds, then looked up. "Can you guys just summarize this for me?"

Sam leaned against the brick wall of the maintenance shed with her arms folded. "The First Action Foundation operates under the auspices of the Barton Small Business Cooperative, which is run by the board of the Millard Foundation for..."

Danny cut her off with an exasperated gesture as he thrust the PDA back into Tucker's hand.

"Bottom line, Danny," Tucker answered, "is that the head of the board of the top level parent foundation is Samuel I. Lupis."

Danny shook his head, hoping that the motion would clear out whatever it was that was keeping any of this from making any sense. Sam seemed annoyed that he wasn't making the connection, and continued.

"Samuel I. Lupis is the founder of Megatech Industries, which owns E.C. Tech, which is the parent company of..." She could see Danny losing interest again. "Hey, this took a lot of research, you know!" She sighed in resignation. "Down the chain a few dummy companies, suspicious mergers and duplicate boards is Tucker's company, TechTonics." Another blank stare from Danny.

Tucker lowered himself to sit on a cinderblock that happened to be on the ground. "Danny, Sam and I work for the same person. Sam Lupis. Sam. Lupis."

Danny smacked his open palm into his forehead. It would give Sam Lupis nothing but pleasure to know that this information had been out there--buried, but out there--the whole time, and that the players in whatever game he was playing hadn't found it.

"Plasmius."


End file.
